Fifteen years of helping journalists get it right

By Rhonda Miller PBN Staff Writer

Rhode Island is building a name for itself in the business of environmental training for journalists, thanks in part to the 15-year-old Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, says spokeswoman Karen Southern.

Fifteen years of helping journalists get it right

FULLY IMMERSED: Ginger Vaughn, left, a Houston-based journalist, takes part in a weeklong Metcalf Institute workshop on marine and environmental reporting. At right is Deborah McDermott, Maine bureau chief for The Portsmouth Herald in New Hampshire.

Rhode Island is building a name for itself in the business of environmental training for journalists, thanks in part to the 15-year-old Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, says spokeswoman Karen Southern.

“The [University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography] has an international reputation and the scientists who are part of the immersion workshop are likely to be quoted in stories around the world,” Southern said. “In a time when Rhode Island is working to improve its image and position itself as an emerging knowledge economy, these journalists give the state a lot of positive exposure.”

Nine more journalists from around the world have added Rhode Island scientists to their digital Rolodexes after spending a week at the institute, located at the graduate school on Narragansett Bay, in a workshop from June 9-15. The group brought the 15-year total to 200 reporters. These journalists give Rhode Island’s environmental experts a connection to TV, radio, newspaper, magazine and online media outlets around the world.

“When you give international journalists such intensive insight on topics they want to report on, and we’re introduced to leading scientists, of course tomorrow they’re going to be my sources,” said Italian journalist Laura Daverio, a foreign correspondent for RSI Swiss television who is based in Beijing.

If the local economic impact on the institute can’t be measured in dollars and cents, it’s the kind of exposure tourism and chamber of commerce leaders often pray for. The stories, for a change, are not likely to mention Rhode Island’s struggling economy, stubbornly high unemployment rate or the skills gap that sends businesses to other states.

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Comments

As one of the 200 journalists who have gone through the metcalf program, I can tell you that it ereally does allow an environment reporter to add to his electronic rolodex. I used URI proffessors in an NPR climate change documentary I produced 10 years ago...I would not likely have found them, or covered the scenes tjhe program offered. without Metcald. Rhode Islanders should be rightfull proud of the program.

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